Heretofore, in the printing plate making and medical fields, effluent resulting from wet processing of image forming materials has become problematic in terms of workability, and in recent years, also from the view point of environmental protection as well as storage space requirements, so that a decrease in processing effluent has been increasingly demanded. Accordingly, it has been sought to achieve a technology, of employing in photographic techniques via photothermographic dry imaging materials, on which efficient exposure can be performed utilizing laser image setters and laser imagers, resulting in clear black-and-white images at high resolution.
Silver salt photothermographic dry imaging materials, which produce photographic images employing a thermal development processing method as the technique to meet the demand, are disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,152,904 and 3,457,075, and D. Morgan and B. Shely, “Thermally Processed Silver Systems” (Imaging Processes and Materials, Neblette, 8th Edition, edited by J. M. Sturge, V. Walworth and A. Shepp, page 2, 1969).
These silver salt photothermographic dry imaging materials are generally comprised of various constituent layers of a photothermographic dry imaging material, such as a light-sensitive layer and appropriate intermediate layers, a protective layer, a backing layer, an anti-halation layer and an antistatic layer which are coated in combination on a support, comprised of such as plastic. Silver salt photothermographic dry imaging materials often suffer undesirable effects due to contact between a silver salt photothermographic dry imaging material and various apparatus surfaces or among the silver salt photothermographic dry imaging materials, between the coated surfaces of a light-sensitive layer and the backing side, during winding, rewinding and transporting during the manufacturing processes such as coating, drying and processing. For example, generated may be scratches or abrasion on the surface of the silver salt photothermographic dry imaging material and deterioration of the transporting capability of silver salt photothermographic dry imaging material in the developing apparatus.
As possible countermeasures to these problems, disclosed are: a method in which improvement is carried out utilizing an alkyl silane compound incorporating more than 8 carbon atoms (please refer, for example, to patent document 1), and a method in which a sulfur type or ester type lubricant is utilized (please refer, for example, to patent document 2), however, each of these methods exhibits adverse effects on photographic performance and poses a problem of tone deterioration in addition to problems of contamination within the thermal developing apparatus which function in a high temperature environment, or the mean is not being capable of providing sufficient slippage at high temperature. In view of this, disclosed is a method which utilizes an inorganic lubricant as an improved method (for example, refer to patent document 3).
The convey rate within the developing apparatus, and the processing rate within automatic developing apparatuses have further increased recently, and in the present state, further improvement of a slippage is required.
Patent document 1: U.S. Pat. No. 6,020,117
Patent document 2: Unexamined Japanese Patent Application Publication (hereinafter, referred to as JP-A) 2001-5137
Patent document 3: JP-A 2002-116520